Tip #3068 - Control That Cursor
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Control
That Cursor
In today’s world,
most of us are using a Microsoft Windows operating system. When compared
to the other operating systems that are currently available, it seems
like the best choice. Similarly, the usage of the mouse is more in Windows
than in any other operating system.
If your mouse happens
to stop working for a day or two, you would have a really tough time trying
to get your work done on your computer. You would have to spend most of
your time working with your keyboard, trying to recollect all the shortcut
keys and the combination keys to use and all of this would have to be
done from your memory. How about something a bit better? Instead, if we
have the option of moving and clicking the pointer (cursor) by using the
keyboard, wouldn't that be so much easier? Yes, I do believe so!
Windows does have
a facility to use on a keyboard that allows you to move the pointer in
the absence of a mouse. Interested? Well, then let's see how we can enable
this feature and use it.
To enable this feature:
1.) Go to Control
Panel.
2.) Select Accessibility
option.
3.) From the dialogue
box, click on the Mouse tab.
4.) Tick the checkbox
of Use Mouse Key.
5.) Click OK
to close the Accessibility Options window.
Note: You
can also press Left Alt key + Left Shift Key
+ Num Lock together to open the MouseKeys dialogue box.
Then press Enter to keep MouseKeys ON.
Press Cancel to keep MouseKeys OFF.
We can also see a
small mouse icon on the task bar (when the MouseKeys option is enabled).
Also, make sure your
Num Lock key is ON. We can use the numeric
pad (the number pad on the right hand side of your keyboard) as MouseKeys,
but only if the Num Lock is ON.
So, now you may be
wondering which keys you can use to actually move the mouse pointer, right?
Okay, well, we have
enabled the MouseKeys feature and have also made sure that the Num Lock
is ON. So, now on the numeric keypad, you are going to use the keys:
- 2, 4,
6 and 8 to move the cursor on the screen toward Down,
Left, Right and Up.
- To left
click (single), press 5.
- To right
click (single), press – (minus).
- To double
click (left), press + (plus).
- To increase
the speed of the pointer movement, double click the mouse icon
on the taskbar and select the Settings button from
the dialogue box. Now you can increase the speed of the pointer by selecting
the Pointer Speed option.
- Also, Click to
check the box that says, "Hold down Ctrl to speed up and
Shift to slow down." Now, if you press the Ctrl
key while holding the arrow key, the pointer speed will increase
and if you hold the Shift key while holding the arrow
key, the pointer speed will decrease.
Note:
If you want to use the numbers from the numeric keypad while using the
MouseKeys, select the OFF radio button from Use
MouseKeys when Num Lock is the option. If you
select ON again, the numeric keypad will be used as MouseKeys.
So, from now on, even
if your mouse goes bad, you still have options to move the cursor!
~ M. Nagarajan
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